After teasing readers,
Vanity Fair has released a lengthy article about two Democratic
consultants who are suing Arianna Huffington over claims that they had a
"crucial role" and "partnership" in the creation of The Huffington Post.
Peter Daou and James Boyce--whose lawsuit on first glance recalls the infamous Winklevoss/Facebook settlement--were present in a
December 3rd, 2004 meeting of prominent liberal activists and John Kerry
supporters who conceived of a "liberal Drudge"
website that could operate as a "tool for the Democratic Party"
(according to Boyce). Here are the highlights of the accusations, as explained in the Vanity Fair piece by William Cohan, coupled with the media response:

Key Question:

Did
Huffington and Huffington Post co-founder Kenneth Lerer take ideas from
Daou and Boyce--ideas the two men call "groundbreaking"--without properly
compensating or acknowledging them? Or is this just a case of sour
grapes, with Daou and Boyce looking to cash in on the hard work of
Huffington and Lerer now that the site is successful and valuable?

Why Are Boyce and Daou Filing a Lawsuit Six Years Later?

True,
for years they had "kept silent about our feelings," partly because "both of us had relationships with third parties who would be harmed if
we were to provoke a dispute over this issue" and partly because, "in
our hearts, both of us expected, year after year, that the situation
would be rectified, because we genuinely believed that you would do the
right thing, recognize our early, crucial role in the creation of the
site, and acknowledge the partnership understanding we all had after
that critical meeting of the four of us." They wrote that with their
previous professional obligations resolved they could finally share how
they had been feeling for years. "All we want is to find closure and an
equitable resolution of our belief that the partnership we formed and
the ideas and plans we contributed to the genesis of the Huffington Post
should be recognized in a tangible way."

How Arianna Huffington Felt About Their Claims:

"I
read your email," she wrote. "I must say, it left me speechless. Your
suggestion, after nearly 6 years, that you understood all along that we
were in a 'partnership' to create and operate the Huffington Post is
stunning. And ridiculous. We never entered into any partnership or other
agreement with you--either written or oral--concerning ownership of the
Huffington Post. During all these years, you never shared in any
financial obligation or risk relating to the Huffington Post. You never
participated in any kind of management at the Huffington Post. You never
shared in or asked for any financial or management information. Hardly a
partnership."

What Boyce and Daou Want:

They are
seeking both recognition and an unspecified amount of financial damages,
although they say any money they end up collecting, after legal fees,
will be used "to support progressive causes and citizen journalists and
bloggers who are active in support of those causes."

(Huffington calls these claims about donations "pure fantasy.")

Vanity Fair Writer William Cohan's Revealing Note:

Indeed,
until the August 30, 2010, e-mail to Huffington, neither Daou nor Boyce
ever voiced any frustration with her or Lerer about being cut out of
the Huffington Post creation myth.This fact, more than any other, seems
to weaken their case.

Why the Facebook Analogy is Problematic:

What really gets Huffington's
goat about Daou and Boyce, according to someone who knows her well, is
their chutzpah. "The fact that you mention the Facebook matter--the day
Facebook went up, you had claims made against it. That's only human
nature," this person says. "If they really thought they had created the
Huffington Post, when the Huffington Post was launched, they would not
have said anything? They would not have sent a single letter but kept
blogging on the Huffington Post? Can you imagine the equivalent in
Facebook? Can you imagine the people who claim they created Facebook
creating a Facebook account and then participating in what they thought
was stolen from them? It defies human nature. It is the point of all
this for which there is no answer."

Slate's David Weigel- "It's a good read that does not do much to convince the reader that Boyce and Daou were right."

The Cutline's Michael Calderone
- "The Vanity Fair piece--which stretches over nine pages, including
glitzy photographs of Huffington and the plaintiffs--doesn't cover much
new ground regarding the suit."

Politico's Ben Smith
- "The story doesn't really advance the argument on the merits, but it
does offer a copy of the document which the consultants had circulated,
and on which they say Huffington Post is based." [Vanity Fair document here]

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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